اختلال در دارایی های نامشهود و افشا توسط بانک های ایتالیایی Impairment of intangible assets and disclosure by Italian banks

1. Introduction The valuation of intangible assets and the annual impairment test required by accounting standards for intangible assets with indefinite useful life, is a very important in terms of assessing the quality of financial statements. This is a two-step process in which the assessment of the recoverable value of the cash generating units (CGUs) is of crucial importance; this assessment entails a complex economic calculation based on quantitative variables (expected cash flows, discount rate, growth rates of the cash flows to estimate the terminal value) and business policies (scope of the CGU and allocation of intangibles to one or more CGUs), that may be very subjective and thus difficult to monitor. This means that the impairment process lends itself to the risk of opportunistic actions by whoever draws up the financial statements, given that they are indeed in a position to manipulate these variables and forecasts, in order to attain objectives different to those established by standard setters. Many articles have been written on this aspect under the far-reaching research field of the accounting quality of financial statements (Dechow et al., 2010), which examined the many reasons that may induce preparers to abuse the subjectivity they are allowed when performing the impairment test. According to these studies, the main reasons include: earnings management policies (timing and amounts of write-offs; information on the quantitative variables used in the impairment process), supporting stock market prices in order to attain personal benefits (economic incentives and reputation). In recent years, the Italian standard-setter (Italian Standard Setter – OIC, 2009, 2011), the National supervisory authorities (Bank of Italy, Consob, ISVAP, 2009, 2010) and the European market regulator (European Securities and Market Authority, 2013) have all called attention to the importance of this matter, asking preparers of financial statements to apply the accounting standard rules on impairment tests more strictly. After the 2008 financial crisis which reduced the enterprise value, making write-downs of intangible assets due to acquisitions more probable, it became necessary to perform an empirical analysis on the financial statements of Italian banks in the period 2009/2014 to monitor different aspects such as the impairment policies used, compliance with applicable accounting standards and the quality of the financial statements submitted to stakeholders. The decision to focus on Italian banks was made for several reasons: in the years prior to the financial crisis, Italian banks made numerous acquisitions, posting significant intangible assets; the financial crisis caused the stock market prices to plummet, making it necessary to write-off the intangible assets of business combinations; and no specific paper has even been published on banks and other financial institutions, so that this study fills a gap; other articles published to date tend to study different industries and countries (above all, manufacturing in the USA). Moreover, our study focussed on Italian banks, given that the reporting obligation required by IAS/IFRS standards is in addition to that of directive 262/2005 of the Bank of Italy, which imposes predefined and very detailed reporting schemes, meaning that the financial statements of Italian banks provide much more information than the financial statements of other EU banks (or other non-financial companies). Even before the ESMA, the Bank of Italy has more than once raised the question of reporting adequacy, urging Italian banks to comply with disclosure requirements and impairment criteria.